For the First Time

Do you remember the first time you did something or went somewhere?

Do you remember the first time you kissed someone besides your parents? My first time was in the living room of my first girlfriend’s house, with the smell of rotten potatoes pervading my nose. Another notable first time: walking into the old Sick’s Stadium in Seattle as a seven-year-old, seeing the bright lights at night, the brilliant white lines, the perfectly green grass. And the first time the ground heaved for a full minute in an earthquake, in Seattle in 1965. Then there was my first time tasting coffee, and it tasted like burnt beans. I still don’t drink it. Or the first time I saw the Grand Canyon, dropping away a mile below me and several miles across… an unforgettable feeling. Or the first time dropping out of an airplane, that panic as I reached for something to hang onto, then the feeling of euphoria to be free, free-falling. With a parachute ready to open.

Or the first time I held my firstborn.

Or the first time I buried a loved one.

These are moments etched indelibly in my mind, my heart, all of my senses, and just saying the words brings them all back, the open-eyed wonder, the height of excitement, the depth of emotions.

Kath and Murphy and I found a nearly empty parking lot at Sharpe Park on this Father's Day afternoon, a gorgeous, sunny, warm day. We hiked the trail past the pond serenaded by redwings and yellowthroats, and got to the fork in the trail — left to Sares Head, or right to Porpoise Point.

She said, “I've never taken the trail to the right, down to the beach.”

“Sure we have,” I said, confidently remembering a hike together that actually never happened.

“No, I don't think I have,” she replied.

I flipped through my sieve-like memory banks, coming up with a handful of hikes I’ve taken here, all of them before I met her.

And so we went right and took the Porpoise Point Trail.

I knew that the proof would be in the pudding when we got to that grove of ancient cedars in the first quarter mile or so. If this was Kath’s first time, I knew how it would affect her, her love of trees so strong. And obviously, as it turned out, this was her first time. As we entered the grove, I watched her eyes open wide in amazement. Her breath caught short, and she just stopped to take in the majesty and holiness of that place. We lingered among the trees, seeing and feeling their roots rising into tremendous trunks and weaving themselves to form a sky-bound cathedral.

This day was wonderfully warm and sunny. There were gentle cooling breezes flowing from the sea through the forest. It was perfect. We started to drop down toward the water, now visible in glimpses through the trees. “The trail drops down very steeply beginning here,” I warned. “Good,” she replied with delight, “let's get down there.”

“What goes down must come back up,” I reminded her.

“Sounds like a real hike,” she said with her adventurous smile.

As the trail steepened, roots and rocks became our stairway down. An olive-sided and an orange-crowned added their music around us. The ground cover became sparse, the trees shrunken, wind-blown, wildly twisted, and much thinner in the soil of rock and stone. Kath just grinned as she took it all in.

Down, down, step by step, and soon there we were at that first rocky point with that many-armed madrone standing guard at the entrance. Sunlight sparkled on the wavelets below. Stringy mats of kelp floated on a bold blue sea under bright blue skies, the sun blazing high above.

Murphy sat in the shade of a scabby tree, drinking water. Kath drank in the beauty of this place in love and amazement. Her eyes said it all, a deep and contented smile.

And then we walked the final steps to grass-covered Porpoise Point. It put the final piece of joy into her first time here. We peeked at the gravel beach hidden among cliffs. We stood on that grass-covered point, a satisfied grin on our faces, our efforts blessed with the beauty and peace all around us.

Being with her as she experienced it for the first time brought me into the present tense more fully, to see this place with new eyes, as if for my first time, too.

Eventually, we followed the trail to the south, climbing with each step, using our hands to help in a couple of places. As we scrambled, we saw a clearly exhausted woman sitting on the side of the trail, asking us how far it was down to the point. We turned back and saw the grassy destination just a hundred yards behind us. She said she wasn’t sure she could hike the trail down the rest of the way. It’s worth it, we shared, but only if you feel comfortable going down this trail, as it is steep right here, and you have to come back up, of course. She said she would think about it. We were worried for her, but continued on.

We climbed and climbed, getting to the Madrone Trail intersection, and followed that straight up the hill, past giant firs with broken branches, through thickening brush as the soil here deepened and water lingered underground. We marveled at the trail work done by WTA crews to build these beautiful routes through challenging landscapes, erecting rock walls to support the trail in places, hauling gravel all the way down here where it was needed. We are grateful.

Sap falling from a Doug fir alongside the trail

And then the trail began to level out, and then we were back at the intersection where we first turned right.

Kath was right, this was her first time here. I was blessed to share that first-time feeling with her, seeing it in her eyes, encouraging me to see it once again as if it were the first time.

And then I thought, what if this were the last time? How would I see it differently? We never know, right, when it will be our last time. We may never pass this way again. I tend to assume that “I will be back. I’ll see this place again.” We assume that about the people we know, parting with them and saying, “See you later.” Only we might not.

How should that change how we experience our times together? Would we see people with new eyes, new depth, new love?

The first time, the last time, and every time in between.